


Breathing Bodies

by Headfirst_for_halos



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: 2004 gerard, Anxiety, Bands, Boredom, Cigarettes, Depression, Emotional, Experimental, Family Issues, Isolation, M/M, Makeup, Music, Older Gerard, Panic Attack, Punk, Smoking, Social Anxiety, Suicidal Tendencies, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, black clothes, black coffee, black nail polish, mikey and frank are brothers, revenge era gerard, romantic style, sort of, teenager frank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 08:28:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11309595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Headfirst_for_halos/pseuds/Headfirst_for_halos
Summary: Frank thinks he's fucked up, but that's okay, because he met someone who might be too.*This is more about the way I felt at the time, than anything else. It's a bit messy and jumping from one thing to another and well emotional i guess. So these are my thoughts on pretty much everything, I hope you're interested.By the way I might add more chapters at some point, I haven't decided.





	Breathing Bodies

The smell really stayed with me.

Hours later I could still smell the smoke in the air even though it wasn't actually there. Well it was the first thing I had noticed, besides my own raging heartbeat, while putting the forbidden goods between my lips. Forbidden around my worrying mother that is.

But there was something that convinced me to try for myself in his stature, or rather in his cheekbones. And what great cheekbones they were, on skin pale enough to wonder if it was natural or just makeup like the red mess around his eyes, bringing out their beautiful hazel color. Probably the latter.

He stretched his arm out to me, his pale lips forming a smirk as he was testing me. For what I'm not sure. To see how much of an awkward loser I really was, or maybe if I had it together enough to not fall for his peer pressure shit. Or maybe, he was only offering a cigarette.

His fingernails were chopped so short there was redness around the edges. They were painted black and uneven, so in the little time I knew him I could already imagine him with a cigarette in one hand, biting off the other.

I took the cigarette between my fingers, touching it lightly as to not crash it, and after a fast made decision, or lack thereof, I put it in my mouth and caught his gaze, which was quickly covered by the smoke. I was lucky I didn't cough it all out, but the nerd I was I had already looked up how to breathe in properly, when smoking, a long time ago. I tried hard to ignore the burn in my nose and my eyes from the smoke, looking down to hide my watering eyes.

I gave it back wondering if he had noticed how I was, in fact an awkward loser, but to my relief he just took it from my hand and put it back in his mouth without saying a word.

That wasn't how it all started though, that was just the most important part.

 

It was a morning like any other. The bed untouched, the music blaring and the hair on his head a mess only he could prefer.

He had longed for some coffee, black and hot to keep him alive, or at least awake, but going up the stairs and into the kitchen was an act both exhausting and terrifying. He looked at the time on his phone's screen. 6:32. Maybe he still had time to make his coffee and get back to the basement before his parents got up to make their own.

He decided fast not wanting to lose the opportunity for caffeine and quietly ran up the stairs without making a sound. He had even turned off the music to open the door without any noise. He didn't have to worry about it when it was closed. The basement was soundproof.

It was natural to him. Hiding in his own house, avoiding his own family, but that didn't mean he wasn't aware of how awkward and weird it would seem to a third person.

He always expected someone to ask why he felt like they hated him so much. Why he always avoided them. What they'd done to him. But there wasn't one thing that happened that made them hate each other. And there wasn't one person asking.

Nonetheless, the reason for him making coffee half an hour before they got up, while praying they'll only leave bed after he's safely back in his dark little basement, didn't have anything to do with that one second that changed everything that everyone always seems to be talking about. It was more like hours of conversation going back and forth with no common starting point anywhere. Glances and looks full of disappointment and despair, raises of voices, and laughter of mock and they all only had one outcome; fear. Fear of disappointing, fear of embarrassing, fear of creativity, fear of open minds, fear of life and most importantly, fear of people.

And as much as he was scared to show emotion, or to let people know about his believes, or his thoughts, or his ambitions, believing in things wasn't something he wanted to give up on.

It wasn't like believing in God. God was never a friend of his, or actually, he was never a friend of God's, but he couldn't help but be a believer. And he believed in a lot of things.

He believed in honesty, in loyalty, in respect. He believed in music, he believed in art, he believed in standing up for yourself, he believed in living loud and living proud, he believed in questioning everything, and he believed in the feelings he got when he thought about the person he was, or at least the person he was trying to be, and those feelings he had long ago called pride.

And he was proud that in all of his fear, he had found a way to be proud.

He was a quiet kid, he always was. His classmates always just thought he was too nice and too innocent for his own good and decided to make fun of him for it, but the truth was that no one really knew him, because if someone did they'd know that he wasn't at all innocent and blank when it came to believes. But no one cared enough to ask and he didn't have the guts to tell anyone without their asking.

So it went on like that for a couple of agonizing years. The daily routine of loneliness was tearing him apart quite literally, and the tearing apart was wearing him out, a lot sooner than what he expected when he first came to the world. Because, you see, no one expects to have lived a full life of disappointment and loneliness before they're even allowed to drive, but that was the only way he could think of it. He had already lived a life's worth of pain.

And that was because in his view he had experienced every emotion that tends to last. Agony, embarrassment, loneliness, despair, rejection, depression, anxiety, they all became one big mass of fear. And fear always morphed into pain.

The only things he hadn't experienced were the things that don't last.

Maybe that was why he was still hanging on a thread. It was just a thread but he was hanging nonetheless. Only the thread had a name in his head. It had a lot of names. Sometimes it'd be music, sometimes it'd be art, sometimes it'd be the posters on the wall and sometimes it'd be the courage you have to have if you want to live. And life, the way he wanted it, wasn't made up of things that lasted, as sad as that made him.

Maybe it was the thought that things couldn't get any worse, the thoughts in his head that is, that kept him hanging, but maybe it was that very thing terrifying him. The thought that things will never change, the thought that going on is but a waste of time.

He couldn't wait to find out.

But for the time being, he only wanted some coffee without having to talk to anyone and act like everything's the way it's supposed to be.

 

School was especially irritating that morning. He was trying to move as fast as possible in between classes. The faster he was, the faster he'd get to go home. At least that's what his imprisoned mind was telling him, and as the only voice he ever heard he had a tendency to take it seriously. Well then again he would put his brother's voice in the serious category as well. At least on some days, which was enough for him.

He loved his brother as much as he thought he could, and as the only person in the world who didn't think he was a pathetic loser, he quite appreciated him too. His brother wasn't as fucked up as he was, then again no one ever could be, but he was fucked up enough in a way compatible with his own.

Even when they were kids he remembers that he was always the brave one, while he was hiding behind someone's leg, his brother was out there making all the introductions for him. He always admired him for being brave, because being able to talk to people without shitting your pants, even then, was the highest form of bravery to him.

Everyone would always tell him that he'd grow out of it, and at the time he really did believe them, in the form of fantasies and aspirations about a future full of confidence, friendships and romances, but as it grew with him he decided that they'd lied to him, which he found, they frequently did.

He didn't mind at the time though. Partially because he really did believe he'd grow out of it, but mainly because he had his brother.

The bravest kid, person, in the world, at least in his own eyes, was always there to take things slow with him. When the kids at the playground were getting a bit too real, and a bit too much like the faces in his nightmares, he would always stay close to him, and his brother would let him, even with company of his own. Deep down they both knew that he needed that special attention. Like a sick person he needed to be looked after, and deep down he knew he liked being looked after, and his brother knew he liked the responsibility of looking over someone, even as the younger one, he was important, he was wanted, he was needed.

Just like old times he was glued to his side, trying his hardest to keep breathing. He didn't even know why he dragged him there. The only thing he had said was something about him never going out and a great party, but great parties to him were the ones where no one talks to him, and no one notices him.

And then it happened. He knew it was coming and yet he couldn't possibly know when. They had grown apart. He didn't blame him; he stuck around longer than normal brave people do. He left him on his own to go talk to a girl. That was exactly what he knew he had to look out for. He knew that the moment the interest in relationships starts, his brother and he, wouldn't need, expect, the same things from each other anymore. The sense of safety at one end and the sense of importance at the other. He knew that his brother could fill his void with someone else now. He didn't need him anymore, he had a new way to feel wanted, needed.

 

He suddenly needed to get out of there. Pride and beliefs were long forgotten, and the need for oxygen and a clear mind was increasing by the second. He tried to keep it together until he was safely out, so he started pushing through the sea of people, hoping that his body wouldn't react to the situation just yet.

He hated that all it took was a room full of people for him to lose his shit. And he hated how his biggest fear was embarrassing himself in front of those people. He kept saying to everyone, including himself, how he didn't care about what people thought, and how that stuff didn't matter, but that didn't take the fear away. It still knocked the wind out of him every time he had to talk to someone, and his hands still started shaking when he had to go out.

Just like they were shaking now trying to grip onto the door hard enough to actually get it to open.

He had made it. It was dark, and it was cold and he was relieved. He heard the door close behind him, and with it the music faded. The only thing he could hear now was his much needed breath, the cars on the other side of the club and the occasional scream of a familiar sounding bird. He kept staring into space for a couple of minutes until he heard someone breathe out behind him.

The first thought that shot through his brain was that there was a murderer behind him, it was a dark alley after all, and that he should go back inside. But the thought of going back was even less appealing than being killed, so in a hasty decision he stayed put and slowly turned around.

There was a guy slightly older than himself sitting on a dumpster, with a cigarette in his mouth. Thanks to the distance between them and the older boy's lack of sudden movements, he didn't start running right away and instead decided to wait and see what the boy's reaction would be.

He was expecting him to ask why he looked like he was about to faint, but he didn't say a word, and instead blew out some smoke and offered the cigarette to the younger boy with an almost emotionless expression.

Frank knew that taking a cigarette from a stranger was definitely not the best idea, especially considering that he had never smoked before, but he had heard that it calms you down, even gives you a high the first time you smoke, and he was in need of some calming down. His heart was still beating insanely fast, and his hands wouldn't stop sweating no matter how many times he wiped them on his jeans.

The older boy's hand was stretched out at an arm's length away from Frank, holding the cigarette between the thumb and the index finger. His fingernails were chopped so short that there was redness around the edges. They were painted black and uneven, and made Frank imagine him with a cigarette in one hand, biting off the other.

He looked at the older boy. He was wearing a smirk that was almost completely covered by his black hair. It was greasy and dirty and in front of his eyes, and his skin was pale, making Frank assume that he was wearing makeup. The space underneath his hazel eyes, which was probably covered in makeup too, was red making him look like he hadn't slept in days.

Frank had never felt so attracted to anyone before in his life.

He took the cigarette from the stranger's hand between two fingers, careful as to not crash it, and made another hasty decision putting it in his mouth.

His heartbeat had started beating twice as fast as before, if that was even possible. He tried sucking on the cigarette like he usually would on a straw. He didn't want to embarrass himself by seeming completely inexperienced and innocent.

He hated giving people the impression that he was innocent, though he was quite inexperienced, so he always tried to be prepared for everything. This wasn't an exception. He had long ago looked up how to breathe in properly when smoking, but that wasn't something you could really read about.

He managed to bring some smoke in his mouth and breathe it out, without it reaching his lungs and making him cough, he wasn't however prepared for the sting in his eyes and his nose, and he tried his hardest not to let a tear fall down his cheek. He looked down trying to hide his watering eyes and gave back the cigarette nervously.

The older boy only smiled and looked to the side using the cigarette himself, without making any comments, which made Frank thankful.


End file.
